The more facts I ramble off, the more I remember who I am. The more I remember who I am, the less He can take from me.

I didn't have many friends growing up. The kids in school always used to make fun of me because I was the kid with the funny name. Ezekiel...I don't know why Mom ever named me that why the fuck would she subject me to that kind of ridicule...even after I told them all to just call me Zeke the insults the jokes the cat-calls they just kept coming kept coming kept coming kept coming kept coming-

He's staring at me right now. I can feel Him looking in on me. Leave me alone, man, just leave me alone, I didn't DO anything, I...

When I was nine, I got so fed up with the insults and the jokes that I snapped and one time during gym class Jimmy Cavaco pushed me against the folding chair stacks and they all crashed on to the floor and everyone laughed at me and I didn't say anything and I grabbed a folding chair and I started beating him up with it and he was crying and pleading with me to stop and I didn't stop and everyone was just staring at me and why didn't I stop and two teachers had to pull me off him and they told me I could have killed him and I didn't MEAN to kill him and that's when I learned I had intermittent explosive disorder and the doctor tried to help me but he never believed me when I told him what was causing it-

They never listened. They never heard. They never believed me when I told them that a man kept coming into my room in the middle of the night. The Nightmare Man. The man who wore a suit and had no face and had arms that made it look like He wanted to hug me and He did hug me and He showed me these things and at first they were great but then they were not and He scared me and He knew it and He wanted to take me and I told my mom I said Mommy the Nightmare Man wants to take me away don't let Him take me Mommy but she did not listen she did not listen she did not FUCKING LISTEN!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

He's staring at me, right through my window.

He thinks I don't see Him, but I do. I'm sitting in my living room, on my laptop, the only sound being the hamster spinning in his wheel, and now His face is just peeking through my window like a neighbor wondering if he could borrow a cup of sugar.

It's like looking at a full moon on a cloudless night. In the dark, He glows a bright yellow, and its effects are both eerie and somewhat soothing if you have no idea what He's doing.

But I know.

Because I hear this voice in my head, telling me to come out. “Come out,” it tells me, “come to me.” I never knew He could talk to you, but apparently He can.

I don't move. I just sit in my chair, laptop in my lap, glass of wine next to me, and I stare back. Stare Him down. My eyes don't leave His face, and His head tilts in that curious fashion, as though He finds me an odd specimen.

I feel like I'm staring right at the lion that wants me for dinner. Now I can understand why so many people fear Him; He has that kind of effect on people. Again and again, I can hear that voice in my head, saying the same thing over and over and over: “Come to me. Come out.”

And every single time I just mentally-and verbally- send Him the same retort:

Saturday, June 12, 2010

My house is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. I've got the windows all locked and the doors secured. Basement door has more locks on it than a bank. Looking around at it all now, it feels like my house is a Saw movie, and I'm the poor sap Jigsaw's tormenting.

My front door has, I kid you not, my handgun placed against the spot where a person's head might be, hooked up to an apparatus I worked on all night. If someone tries to enter without me knowing, they get one to the noggin. Against Him, I don't know how much work it's going to do, but it's a defense and I'll be damned if I'm just going to let Him waltz in without a fight.

My back door is defended somewhat similarly. The main difference is that it's a shotgun. Don't ask me where I got it, because technically, I'm not allowed to say. But it's wired the same way, only placed back some more so that it's propped up on a box. If someone comes in, they get a chest full of buckshot. That's the plan, anyway.

For the windows, there's really not much I can do except pray He doesn't know how to open them. He probably does. Wouldn't surprise me.

I considered buying a camera to tape myself as I sleep, just in case I get a late night visitor. Ultimately, I decided against it. There are just some things I would rather not know the answer to.

Don't think I just stay inside 24-7, though. I do get out. I go shopping for food. I go to the coffee shop and get my coffee. I take walks. I get out of the house as much as I can during the day. The defenses are for when I have to come home at night.

I stay in public as much as I can during the day. He can't get me in broad daylight. But at night, it's just me and Him, whenever He decides to come.

Moving is out of the question. I have nowhere to go. My parents have been overseas on a cruise for months now, and I don't expect them home soon. I have no other relatives nearby, and friends...who are you kidding, do I sound like a guy who has a lot of friends? I haven't talked to my high school friends in months. And it's not like I have any friends on the job...not anymore, at least.

No, this is where I stay. This is where I try and hold out as long as I can while I try and figure out how to solve this shit situation I've gotten myself into. Find a way to save myself.

…

For the first time since I was thirteen, I don't feel safe in my own house.

And the fact that He can do that scares me worse than anything else He can possibly do to me.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

I'm finally calmed down enough to write this entry. The images from last night are permanently burned in my retina, so I can't forget them, no matter how hard I try to or want to. All that blood, all that panic...all that I saw...

Okay...okay...

We hit the warehouse at around seven forty-five. Small team; I was the only detective. We went in through the front entrance, two at a time, except me, who went in last. I would have rather gone in first...although now that I think on it, I would rather not have gone in at all.

We organized in the lobby, and again, I chose to go by myself. The adrenaline rush was giving me an added sense of awareness. I had my gun out, and something told me I would be using it before the night was over. So we split up, and I went through the right-hand door with my gun drawn.

Thinking about it now, the dying sounds of the team's footsteps was the most ominous and despairing thing I had ever heard.

I don't know what Conaghan was using this place for, but in all the major shipping rooms there's nothing in them aside from crates and barrels scattered all around, and paper flying everywhere. I forgot to check if this place was actually still operational or not. Guess it really doesn't matter now. I didn't see anyone around.

I had the flashlight in one hand, and my gun in the other hand, and I had the flashlight hand over the gun hand like you see in the movies. Both were up, the light to see where I was going, and the gun to scare someone into submission, and failing at that...well, it WAS loaded.

Those hallways were dark, and they kept branching off to other parts of the building. It felt like I was navigating the labyrinth as I made my way through them. Once or twice I'm pretty sure I ended up in the same room more than once, going in circles. I was getting pretty disoriented, and I had barely been in there an hour.

It was around the second hour or so that my walkie went off. I lowered my flashlight to grab it, and with the flashlight pointing at the ground I felt like I was surrounded by a void. I brought the walkie to my mouth to respond.

“Li...'s...n th...ildin...he...n...ke re...ond...”

Whoever was on the end must have had shit reception. I asked them to repeat it, but the second time was just static. I tapped it with the flashlight, and then this white noise blew my fucking eardrums up, so I finally just turned it off. I figured there must have been a tower down or something, I don't really know.

So I kept going, same stance as before. For some reason, this cloud of paranoia was hovering over my head, I just could not keep calm. My breathing was getting pretty heavy, my head was looking all over, keeping one eye peering over my shoulder just in case someone was following me. Felt like every five minutes I was turning around with my gun out to make sure I wasn't being followed.

I was more paranoid than normal. I don't even care anymore. I don't think I'll ever stop being paranoid ever again.

Three hours in now...was it that much? I don't know, time has gone out the window for me, it could have all been done in an hour for all I know...it felt like three hours in, so I'm going to just go with that...

Three hours in, I finally found this door. I probably would have passed right by it if something hadn't smacked against it. It might have been a kick...the more I think about it, the more I'm certain that it was a kick. But it was this big iron door, with a simple knob.

I tried opening it, but it was locked. I threw my weight against, tried kicking it, it was not budging. Now I was sure something was back there- why lock something unless something was important in there?- and I aimed my gun to shoot the knob off when-

This loud scream echoed through the hallways. A woman's scream. At first I thought there was an officer down...but our group didn't have any women among us.

So I said fuck the door. Someone was in here- Conaghan apparently worked fast- and needed help. So I took off back the way I had come.

Only, remember how I said I was navigating a maze? I had no idea where I had come from or which way I was supposed to be going. I must have slammed into ten different walls, and the dying batteries in my flashlight were not making things any easier. At one point, I cut my arm on something, not sure what...it left a nice little scratch, bleeding quite a bit. Not deep enough to get infected, I found out later, but that's besides the point. I'd lose the fucking arm if I could just get things back to normal.

I will never forget when I came to that fork. It was the way I was coming, then the option to either go straight or take a right. It didn't look familiar at all, and I should have checked my corners before I did anything, but I took the right anyway and...

Heh...I guess this is the part where you all say “I told you so”. I suppose I deserve it, but...I didn't think karma would bite me that hard. If I could take it all back I would, but...I suppose this is what I deserve, but...

I saw it. Him. Whatever the fuck you people call him, he was THERE.

I took that right and I brought my flashlight and gun up and there he was, standing right there in the middle of the hallway and at first glance I thought it was Conaghan...God, they look so similar...but once I got to the face, I froze. He stood at six, six and a half feet tall...maybe seven feet, I don't know, I didn't measure him. His face...well, he HAD no face, but it still felt like his eyes were boring right into me as his head was bent at that weird angle as though he found me curious. He wore that suit that looked like a formal version of Mr. Rogers' outfit, and his arms...his fucking ARMS...they were bent at that awkward angle that made him look like he was going to give you a hug. Although now that I recall it more vividly, his arms looked like they were...changing.

I couldn't move at first; it felt like someone had glued me in place. I tried to form a complete sentence, but the only thing I could really choke out was, “Oh, fuck ME.”

Then he took a step towards me, and I snapped out of it. I raised my gun and fired five bullets right at his chest, then turned and ran out of there like a bat out of hell. I don't know if any of those bullets actually hit him, I don't really care, I just got the hell out of there. He might have been chasing me, or he might have just been trying to scare me. I hope I never know.

I ran faster than I had ever run in my life. Every single horrible memory from my childhood came flooding back to me all at once; every ounce of fear for the dark that I had ever felt in my life, twelve years of it, hitting me like a tidal wave. I remembered things that I didn't even know had happened, remembered things that I had tried to repress my entire life. I ran and I ran and I ran and I turned every corner and hurdled myself over every obstacle until something tripped me. I rolled and made sure my gun was up and-

It was a body. A fucking body. Right in the middle of the hallway. She was covered in blood, and there were cuts and slices from her face to her feet. The knife was still in her chest, covered in her blood. She was still breathing, but it was raspy, and me tripping over her leg probably didn't help her much. I stood over her, trying to see her face, and when she looked up at me with those big Bambi eyes, I just...

“No...no...”

She followed me here. Even after I told her to stay at the station where it was safe, she just couldn't let it go. That's what the voice on the walkie was trying to tell me; that she had come in and had taken off after me. Then she got lost, and Conaghan...came up behind her...with the knife, and...

I knelt beside her and cradled her in my arms. The knife was sticking right out of her chest, the handle resting against her breast, and I thought that it was in her heart. If that were the case, it would be too dangerous to pull it out. But with wounds like this...unless a doctor showed up soon...

I shouted down the hallway for a doctor, for the team, for ANYONE to help. Then she looked up at me and smiled, then muttered something that almost sounded like her throat gurgling. I leaned in to hear her, and she placed her blood-stained hand on my shirt as she whispered into my ear.

“It's your turn now...I'll see you soon, Zeke...”

She didn't say anything more. And as her hand fell off my chest I lifted my head back in time to see the last signs of life leave her once lively, once beautiful face.

I don't know how long I was there for. Minutes, hours...doesn't matter. All I know is when they finally found us I was kneeling, cradling a blood-covered corpse that had once been my partner, my best friend, covered in her blood and tears streaming down my face. Then they pulled us out...

We didn't find Conaghan. We didn't find Eric. We didn't find Slender Man. All they found was one officer dead on the inside, and one officer just plain dead.

I don't know what to do. I'm still paranoid. I can't get these thoughts out of my head...I can't get her face, or His, out of my head...

I'm scared now...it took a couple of months, but I'm officially scared.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Monday, June 7, 2010

Conaghan took off. Fortunately, he didn't get very far. Intel says he's holed up in one of his warehouses, off the corner of Hope and Rutland Streets.

We're going in to take him down. My bet is, that's where he's got Eric too. Like Lizzie said, we find him, we find Conaghan, we hopefully end this thing. I'm optimistic about it; I'm ready to go back to life as per normal.

Lizzie wants to come too, but I'm putting my foot down. Yeah, she's gotten better in the last week since our talk, and if she hadn't freaked out this morning, I probably would have considered it, but since she did, I'm not letting her go within a hundred feet of the place. She pouted and protested, but I gave her a look that said if she didn't listen to me, I was going to tape her to her bed. So she finally agreed to at least stay at the station while we went.

Let's just finish this shit up already. I'll post when we've got the slimeball.

Chief said that they had a break-out last night, around one in the morning. Ten guys we were holding all made a break for it. I'm not sure how they did it, no one is sure, but it kept our guys busy trying to round them all up.

When I called, they had just brought in the ninth guy back to his cell.

Woke up to Lizzie screaming bloody murder. Fell off the couch, got myself oriented, and ran upstairs with my gun ready, for that just in case scenario that someone had finally gotten through.

When I got the door open, she was just kicking and flailing and screaming and kicking at the sheets, but there wasn't anyone WITH her. At least she wasn't being lifted into the air by an invisible force, but that was no comfort at the moment.

I holstered and shook her awake, trying to snap her out of it. Took me about five minutes before she finally opened her eyes and looked up at me as though she had just found out Hitler had risen from the dead and was about to resurrect Nazi Germany.

“He's out...His servant is out...it's started...”

Eventually I got her to calm down, but she still repeated that, over and over again, for about an hour afterwards.

Something's happened. I'm going to call the station and see if something's going on that I should know about. What she's saying has me worried that...I can't think of it now. I'll let the chief tell me.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

That was the beginning of our conversation that transpired last night. We were playing rummy on her bed and I was winning when she suddenly sprung that thought on me. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but then it hit me then.

She had seen something that night; something that I hadn't. I should have realized then what that was going to do to her.

“When...you saw this...guy?” I asked, wanting to bite back the words I had spent the last couple of months speaking out against.

She nodded, her face scrunched, looking like she was going to have another breakdown. She gets them randomly, and each time is ever more depressing than the last.

“It was when we were watching the fireworks...I looked over at you, and then I saw Him out of the corner of my eye, He was looking right at me...that was the night I realized it was no joke. And then when you COULDN'T see Him...that's when I knew He was after me...”

“Why? Why does he want you? What did YOU do?”

“Nothing. It doesn't matter. He takes everyone, no one is safe.”

I thought of all the victims- Victoria, Jessica, Sam, Eric- and I shuddered. That definitely seemed to be holding up.

“He's been visiting me...” she continued. “Every couple of nights...and He shows me what He really wants...”

“And what does He really want?”

She looks at me, and I automatically know the answer. Of course; it wasn't HER name painted on a ceiling in blood, was it? Stupid question.

“Zeke...you always said that your childhood home used to scare you...did you ever see Him?”

I shook my head. “It was just the paranoia of a little kid living out in the woods, Lizzie-”

“For twelve years? Yeah, it's the middle of nowhere, but most kids get over it LONG before that!

I tried to remember if there was a time when I ever saw a face looking through my window, but it all came up blank. I remember noises, the usual twigs snapping and leaves crunching, but I never saw anyone really hanging around my house. Of course, in the middle of the night, it always SOUNDED like someone was outside, but we never had any incidents.

“Nothing ever happened.”

“But He was THERE. He showed me looking through your window when you were a child. He showed me walking into your room and staring at you, just staring...”

Now I'm certain I would remember THAT. If someone had come into my room, I was a light enough sleeper that I would have heard him.

She watched my face and knew that I wasn't going to remember anything any time soon. We sat in silence for a minute or two before I decided to press on with the question that had infuriated me since our fight.

“If you knew it was going to get this bad, why the hell did you keep digging yourself into all that crap? Why keep researching if you knew it would come back to haunt you?”

“At first, it was the excitement in me,” she explained. “When you told me what that one commenter had said, I was curious. Then when I remembered those videos you made me watch, I was fascinated by the idea of Him, the idea of this being that existed through what I thought was fear and paranoia...so I started reading more, learning more, figuring out what has made Him so feared all over the Internet. I wanted to figure Him out.

“What I didn't realize...even though other people have warned of it...was that the more you know, the easier you are to being one of His victims. And the more I knew, the more I got wrapped in...”

Jesus. She's comparing it to being in a gang almost. The further you get in, the harder it is to get out.

“When I realized it...I tried to avoid learning any more...so...so...” She sniffed and looked at me, guiltily. “So I asked Eric to help.”

My blood froze. Eric...

“I didn't mean for what happened to him...I thought if he just helped out a little bit, He would ease off of me...I was so focused on just getting myself off the hot list that I didn't realize that it was effecting him too, not until it was too late...I'm sorry, Zeke, I'm really sorry-”

I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to acknowledge it. Didn't want to think that Lizzie's snooping is what got our friend kidnapped...

“Lizzie,” I asked seriously. “Is Eric still alive?”

“He's not dead...yet...” Lizzie shook her head. “I don't know what they're doing with him, or what they're going to do, but he's still here...”

Some good news, at least.

“Lizzie...we need to find him,” I said. “And your little friend. We need to find both of them, and we've got to put a stop to this-”

She actually laughed here, and that surprised me. Felt like I had not heard her laugh in weeks. But it wasn't her usual laugh; this one sounded cold, way too cold.

“You can't stop Him, Zeke. Do you think He would still be doing this if He could be stopped?” she asked me. “Why do you think all the stories involving Him end the same? Marble Hornets, that incident with Logan Renault...it all ends the same. He always wins. Sooner or later, He's going to take me too.”

“Well, I'm not going to let him.” I said, and she just gives me this look that makes me feel like she knows I'm going to fail, but I don't care. Slender Man, Conaghan, or someone else, they're not laying a finger on her, or me. They're fucking with the wrong guy.

She looked down at the bed. “As for where we find them...He'll let us know when it's time. He always does...”

And that was really it. I know you were probably expecting a longer conversation, but that was really the gist of it. It certainly explained some things for me, but also raised more questions. The answers to those, though, were something we'd have to figure out later.

I did ask one more question, though a different related topic. As I was tucking her in, right before she closed her eyes to pass out, the question that had always kind of been on the tip of my brain finally made its way out-

“Lizzie, why did you set me up with that blog?”

She laughed again, but this time it was warmer, more like the laugh I was used to.

“You get your feelings out in a journal better than you do with words or actions, Zeke. That's always been you. So I created it for you so that you could figure things out for yourself.” And here she gave me that look, that little mischievous look that always both annoyed me and intrigued me.

“I wanted to get you to admit that you were in love with me.”

I smiled and called her a cold-hearted bitch, to which we both laughed at. Then she closed her eyes and I waited until I was certain she was asleep before I left her to her dreams and went back downstairs to try and write this out.

I don't know what's going to happen...but I do know that when the time comes to find out, I'm going to give it everything I've got.